The Daily Show: Ears Edition - All Eyes on Georgia: Peach State Political Coverage

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Georgia's GOP senators face Democratic challengers in runoff races, Rep. Lucy McBath discusses Georgia's role in the 2020 presidential election, and Dulce Sloan examines census suppression. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes, a second look, starting September 17th, wherever you get your podcasts. The United States Senate. It's the home of the two least intimidating street gangs.

And right now, the future of the Senate is on the line in Georgia, where Republican incumbents Kelly Lofla and the tollu are both facing tough Democratic challenges in runoff elections. So, to give Lofler and Purdue a boost, the GOP is pulling out its biggest gun. Donald Jango-Fat Trump. All eyes on Georgia, those two critical Senate runoffs heating up the control of the Senate at stake. President Trump hosted an outdoor rally in Georgia in support of the two Republican senators

locked in a special election battle. The rally in Valdezda, Georgia was the first one since the November election. It was very important as Republicans try to keep the Senate in their control. At the urging of Kelly and David, my administration took historic action to protect growers of Georgia blueberries, peppers, squash, and cucumbers. Who does cucumbers around here?

Because I like cucumbers. I like cucumbers. Yo, guys, Trump doesn't care anymore. I mean, like, he even cares less, but he doesn't care. He'll just say whatever pops into his mind now. Who likes cucumbers? Who likes cucumbers? I'm the only one.

They've got that green screen, but it's bumpy. It's so green, so bumpy like it's got warts. I had a wart once, but it got removed. I wanted to put it in a little jar, but they wouldn't let me. It would have been my best friend. And look, of course Trump loves cucumbers. It's no surprise. I mean, yeah, he prefers them pickled and surrounded by a Big Mac, but still, that's a cucumber. So look, clearly Donald Trump is only going to be of limited help, but the GOP senators haven't been able to help themselves much either.

You see, both of them are in hot water over big stock trades that they made during the coronavirus pandemic. And that two debates yesterday, neither of them handled the issue well. First of all, Senator Purdue simply skipped his debate, leaving his opponent John Ossef to debate an empty lectern, which actually put extra pressure on Ossef because imagine if you lost to a lectern. Like the voters are just like, oh, I don't know. I guess I like the strong silent type.

And while Loflid did show up at her debate, after this exchange, oh, she might wish that she hadn't. Senator, should members of Congress be barred from trading stocks? Look, what's at stake here in this election is the American dream. That's what's under attack. When they attack me for a lie, a left-wing media lie, conspired with the Democrats by. This is an attack on every single Georgian who gets up every day to work hard to provide a better life for the Democrats spy. This is an attack on every single Georgian who gets up every day to work hard to provide a better life for their family who wants to live the American dream.

Wow, robot and Coulter nailed that. Because if you're trying to dodge a question, you just pivot to the American dream. She's got to be a role model for the kids in Georgia. Billy, did you flush a cherry bomb down the toilet? Look, Mr. Johnson, what's at stake here is the American dream. That's what we got to be talking about. You're right, Billy.

You're right. And you've got to love how shady rich people always try to acting them is attacking everybody. If you take away my helicopter parking spot, you're taking helicopter parking spots away from every American in this country. Now, let's be clear, even though Georgia went narrowly for Joe Biden this year, it is still a very red state.

And the Republican candidates do have an advantage. But ironically, Trump might be hurting their chances more than he helps. For Republicans looking at Georgia, there are questions now about whether the president's baseless claims of a stolen election could actually depress turnout for those really important runoffs. When the president was down here in Baldasta and a crowd that attracted thousands of people, he told them conflicting messages. He said the election was rigged, hey, but go out and vote January 5th for these two senators. So what message does that leave these loyal supporters of his with, it leaves many of them

confused? This is exactly the kind of thing that Republicans are concerned about. They are worried that the president's message on election fraud could essentially backfir, if he convinces voters that it's not worth their time to go out and cast their ballot on January 5th because the fix is in. That's right. Because they indulged Donald Trump's bullshit claims of fraud, Republicans might have suppressed their vote so much that they could lose their Senate majority. In fact, you might say that Trump has put Republicans in quite the pickle. I like cucumbers. My man.

Georgia has become what many people thought it would never, a battleground state. When you look at what has happened in Georgia, do you think that this is Georgia changing? Or do you think that this is Georgia responding to Donald Trump? Georgia is changing. Georgia is changing. Trevor, as I've been seen for years now, that this is the New South. And I think the resistance that we've seen is just that, the resistance to the New South. And just the amazing movement building that's been done, the strategizing that's been done, the grassroots organizing that's been done.

I knew we were going to be a top-tier battleground state and so I'd been telling people all along please invest in Georgia, you know the best is yet to come and we've shown that. You know we made President Trump a one-term president and we've actually been able to be a deciding state for you know president-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris so yes the South is changing and I'm glad that this Peach State has the ability to be on the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the to be on the the to be on the the the the to be on to be on to be on to be on thest. to be to be to be theaestest. to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be toeckeckeckeckeckeckeckecke. thiiiibecke. thiibecke. thiia. thiae. thi. the. the. theaneaneaneaneaneaneaneaneaneane. to be to be in. theaneane. theaneaneaneaneaneateate. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. that this Peach State has the ability to be on the front lines of that. You'd think the states would want to make sure they get their count right. But half the states don't spend any money on the census. Zero dollars. That's the same amount of money I've spent on Wi-Fi since to a Starbucks. To find out why, I called someone doing census outreach in Georgia.

Genee! Josie! I need your help, friend. So some states don't want to be counted accurately? Explain to me what's going on here. So unfortunately, not all states have invested in the census. You have some states like California that have invested over $180 million, which is about $4 per person. But then, on the other hand, you have the state of Texas, which is investing $0 in making sure they get a complete count.

So you're saying that there are places that are not trying to get the census right. Why? When the census is done, those numbers are used in a process called redistricting, which is a fancy word for redrawing voting districts all the way down to the school board level. If you're able to keep a certain type of person out of the census, then you also keep them out of the redistricting process, which redraws the maps and distributes political power. Now when you say certain people do you mean us? You know who I'm talking about. Anytime a map is unfairly drawn the only way we have to fight it is on the basis of racial gerrymandering and if you don't count all the races

if you don't have thethe races, if you don't have the complete demographic picture, then we don't have anything to stand on to fight unfair maps. A suppressed census leads to many of the problems we are seeing today, like disparities in health care, education and representation. Okay, this all sounds like it makes sense, but it also sounds like a conspiracy theory for a very good movie. Am I being paranoid?

I'm not being paranoid, I'll say. And we have evidence to back it up. If you remember, the Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question to it up. If you remember the Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question to the census, that's the Supreme Court shut down. They were working with the guru of gerrymandering, Thomas Hoffeller. When he died, his daughter found his hard drive, and on those hard drives, there was a study out of Texas, where he found that if you added a citizenship question to the census and would benefit the Republican Party and white voters. No conspiracy, data, straight facts.

You gotta work so hard to be so shady. There's one more thing that would... If you don't complete the census and you don't answer the door, the Census Bureau uses a process called imputation. If you are a black woman living in a place that is majority white and you don't respond to the census, then they say, hey, this person might be a white guy. You're telling me if I don't turn in the census paperwork and don't fill it out online and then don't answer the door when they come to my house because you know that I'm not answering the door. I could be a white man in the eyes of the US government? Could it be?

Uh-uh, uh-uh. The only time I want to be as soon to be white is when the cops show up. In the same way, when we talki the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the tha tha tha tha tha tha tha tha tha tha tha tha, th-a th-a the same the same way th-a th-in. th-in. I'm th. I'm th. I'm thi, I'm thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th is the th is the thi. I the, I the is the. I tha. tttttttto. tttttto. ttto. to. to. to. to. to. to to to the the th suppression. So wait, so I have to worry about police oppression, voter suppression, and census suppression too? There's too many actions. That's what they want, though, say. They want you to be overwhelmed so that you just throw your hands in the air and say, forget it. But we can't do that.

We have to fight voter suppression. We've got to fight census suppression. And that's why my sister Stacey Abrams started two organizations that do just that. So when you say sister, you being like sister or like sister sister? We got the same mom and daddy. Your sister Stacey Abrams? Yeah! Oh, then you know firsthand how important it is to count people in the state of Georgia. It was shady how they're th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th. th, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that thi thi thi thi thi know firsthand how important it is to count people in the state of Georgia. It was shady how to do it hurt. They're doing all of this to discourage us, but what we have to do is show them that we

see them. We see that you are leaving certain communities out and stripping away their political power, and we can't let them win. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. You're rolling. But that's all about to change.

Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes, a second look, starting September 17th, wherever you get your podcasts. Election season is still not over. I know, I know. The run-of-election for two Senate seats in Georgia is happening right now. And so is the fight over whose votes get counted. It's the perfect time to bring you another episode of America's Most Depressing Game Show. Welcome back to America's Got Suppression, the number one game show that

figures out which American has had their voting rights suppressed the most. I'm Roy Wood Jr. She's Desi how excited are you to be here tonight? Oh, not at all, Roy. Every glimpse at America's failure to fulfill the basic principles of democracy breaks my soul a little bit more. Well, we've got 200 more episodes of this shit, so buckle up. Tonight we are in beautiful Georgia. Tonight we are in beautiful Georgia, the only place where you can get peaches, chicken wings, and strippers, all in the same building. Now, those are three things I have a crippling addiction too.

Desi, right now, Georgia's in the midst of a runoff election for two Senate seats, so the voter suppression down here is just, um, super suppressing. Our first contestant, John T. Austin is a Grammy-winning R&B songwriter. He's more handsome than Roy. Wait what? And he still had to wait 11 hours in line to vote. He's worked for some of my favorites. Mariah, Mary J. Tony Braxton, J. to the 90s R&B? Wait, wait, wait. you're in the 90s R&B? Oh yeah. It's the only music I get nasty too. Jante, why do you think you have you you you th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. th. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. th. th. th. th. th. th. to. too. Jante, why do you think you have what it takes to win AGS? Okay, well, my suppression is that I stood in line for 11 hours to cast my vote in the presidential election. Wow, 11 hours. No one should have to wear a diaper to exercise the right to vote.

Well, no, I didn't have to wear a diaper. You went in your pants. I'd go straight straighten the diaper. Save the evidence. Am I right, Jante? I don't know about that one. Did you ever consider walking away? No, no, never. My grandfather, William Harris, was in the civil rights movement,

and he was beaten in Mississippi, trying to register black people to vote, and he was put in jail for a week and to know that someone went through that just to get me my right to vote. It was never a question of, you know, getting out of line. But why were the lines so long? I mean, did people think they were waiting on a PS 5? When I finally got inside and the demographics that there were only 10 working machines, that kind of gave me some clues as to why the line had been taking so long. Whereas you go to to to to th th th th th, th, th, th, the the, the, the, the thi thi, thi, thi, thi, the thi, the thi, the the the the their their is their thi, the go to other counties and the demographics might be, let's call it different, and they have all of the machines that they need.

Dante, let's talk about the runoff. What are you most looking forward to when you go vote and wait in line for 17 hours in January? Well, I'm hoping that it won't be that long, but I'm prepared to ship my pants for democracy. True words. Let's meet our next contestant. Christine Jordan is a 94-year-old Atlanta resident who has also produced albums with Mary J. Blige. I'm pretty sure that's a typo, Desi. But in actuality, in 2018, her voter registration was denied for no reason.

So on this day, when they want to find her voter rolls, it was as if she did not exist. We don't know about what was going on, what to say or what to do because it was just a lick upside out of her head. They have no record of her voting in any election ever. Everything is gone. Her entire history was deleted. Miss Jordan, how long have you been voting at this location? Ever since 1960? Since 1960. 1968. So you basically been voting since they allow black people to vote. You should have your own dedicated voting machine.

Yes, you should. You should just walk in. They go, Miss Jordan. I'm like that at Applebee's as soon as I walk in. They go, Mr. Wood, here's your booth. It should be the same thing. Jessica, do th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th the tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho thi. thi. tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. to to to to to to to to to to to toeea. toea. toea. toea. toea. toea. to to same thing. Jessica, do you think that there could be some sort of reason for this happening? Was there a name change? Was she abducted by aliens and switched out with another person's body?

I think the aliens right on track. She's voted in every election possible. No, there's never been a time even the small elections that we have been, thiled, thiled, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, there's never been a time, even the small elections that we have. So there's no reason for her to have been dropped. Daisy, this woman has spent most of her life at the polls. You should win just for that. I think you're right, Roy, but we still need to hear from our last contestant, just to be polite. Latasha Brown is a co-founder of thousands of Georgia voters who were illegally purged from the rolls.

And evidently she's got a lot of Christmas spirit. Black Voters Matters joined in several other organizations who were suing the state of Georgia because the secretary of state in October 2019 wrongfully purged from the voting rolls, 200,000 people saying that they no longer had the correct address. We discovered that in fact the majority of those people were still living in the correct address. We discovered that, in fact, the majority of those people were still living in the places that they said that they were. The Purge. That's the one day a year where you can have sex

with someone outside your marriage. That's not what that movie was about, Desi. What movie? We're talking about 200,000 voters. If they're not restored by the courts, they will not be able to participate in the runoff election as well. Well, thank you, Ms. Brown, and I know you've got to get back to suing the government, and Desi, we've got to decide who's going to win America's Got Suppression. Is it going to be standing in line for 11 hours in pooping your pants?

Or is it going to be losing your right to vote after 52 years. Or the purge of over 200,000 voters. The winner of America's Got Suppression is. Miss Jordan, congratulations. You are the winner. Hang on, Desi, I'm hearing something from the judges. They're saying that they don't have her paperwork. Oh no. You know what this means? It must mean Mitch McConnell wins again.

Hold on, Desi. Mitch doesn't have to win. Not if all these voters come out in the runoff election. Are you ready to vote again, Miss Jordan? If I happen to go and vote 50 years from the hour ago. But that type of determination, the winner could be democracy. Probably still be Mitch McConnell. Well that's all the time we have for tonight. Why does this still exist?

I think we're in hell. Atlanta has become a hotbed of these conversations. their has become a hotbed of these conversations. Everything from Armad Abrey toshard Brooks, as you just mentioned, has thrown Atlanta into turmoil. You know, you've had police officials resigning, you've had the mayor coming out and condemning the violence, and it feels like Atlanta is more an edge than we've seen, I mean, almost ever. When you look at what has happened, what is happening and the conversations around it,

where do you think America needs to go? Where do you think Atlanta needs to go? Where do you think Georgia needs to go? I approached this in a different space because my first major activism on my own was in the 92 Rodney King protest. It was being a part of a community separated by Gates to college on one side, housing projects on the other, but we were all cordoned off and tear-gast by the city of Atlanta, by the state of Georgia. I understand the outrage and the pain that is discomforting to some and offensive to others,

because I understand where it begins. And what we have to understand is that these moments cannot be allowed to dissipate and let us return to not a normal, but to a state of numbness, where we just accept that our deaths are going to happen. We accept that our degradation is going to happen. My hope and my expectation, the reason I wrote this book is because there is a pathway for more, but it doesn't happen if we just assume that we get what we get and we don't

deserve more. It really is interesting that you've written a book that I think affects so many including yourself you know in a really personal way. to write a book about voter suppression you know is too many people would be a tall task because they'd say can you prove it can you to show it. We just just the the the the th. th. th. th. th. th th. th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thus thus thus thus thus thus thus thi thus thi thi thi thi. thi thi. thi. thi thi. thi. thi thi. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th. th. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thr- to toe toe toe toe toee toeeeeeat toe. toeat toe. toe. the. the the th a tall task because they'd say, can you prove it? Can you show it? We just saw primaries take place in Georgia, where people were forced to wait an hour, some people even left before they could vote. What was interesting is that this took place in predominantly African-American communities, but also in Republican communities as well, that are predominantly white. My question to you is, when I look at the book book book book book book book book book book book book book book book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, the book, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, t, t, t, t, t, t, t, t, t, t, th. And, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thr-i, tha, thaui, thaui. thaui. thau. thau. thau. thau. thaui, thaui, tha, tha question to you is, when I look at the book that you're writing now and what's happening in Georgia, what are you learning from Georgia

that America needs to learn about voting and protecting people's rights to vote? First of all, voter suppression has a singular way of being expressed in Georgia. I experienced it on Tuesday in 2020, and it's happened for the last 20 years. But what's singular to Georgia is not solely limited to Georgia, because we also watched on April the 7th as men and women were forced to stand in lines at the height of COVID-19 in Wisconsin. We saw the hours-long lines in Texas because of the shutdown of precincts.

We know that in Nevada and South Carolina on Tuesday, while Georgia got the lion's share of the attention because of the size of our population, there were also challenges hours long lines because they shut down precincts in Clark County in Nevada. What we at fair fight, the organization I started, what we are trying to do and what I'm trying to do through this book is make us pay attention to vot a the voter.............. A, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is a, is a, is a, is a they.e. I I. I. they. they. they. they. they. they. the they. the they. the the they. they. the the the the the trying to do, and what I'm trying to do through this book, is make us pay attention to voter suppression now in the primaries so we can fix it for the general. Because the other side, the conservatives that have architected this suppression, they hope that we give up. They hope we look away, and they hope that the conflagration and the explosions of anger and they basically die down before November and that we

allow the system to continue the way it's been designed. What was interesting about Georgia was the fact that you know some Republican precincts were affected as well. Do you think that that undermines the argument of voter suppression or do you think it shows something else? It actually it's the through line that I've tried to push since 2018 in specific which is that the targets may be people of color, it may be young people, it may be the poor, but when you break the machinery of democracy, you break it for everyone. Incompetence and malfeasance, when they come together, it can't distinguish who is the target and who is a bystander. And that's why you saw Republican communities, you know, areas that the Speaker of the House overseas,

they couldn't vote. Black folks couldn't vote. Brown folks couldn't vote. It happens when you, when you harm the infrastructure of what holds us as a nation together, everyone suffers. They may not suffer in the same amount, and not at the same time, but eventually it takes us all down.

The Daily Show with Covernoa, Ears Edition. Watch the Daily Show. toysh. the Daily Show. tow. the Daily Show. And subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it.

This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. Really? But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes, a second look. Starting September 17th, wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Comedy Central Podcast.